Disney+ Now Has R-Rated Movies: How to Turn on Parental Controls

Todd Spangler
·3 min read
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On Friday, Disney+ launched the first R-rated movies on the streaming platform: “Deadpool,” “Deadpool 2” and “Logan.”

The three Marvel movies were produced by 20th Century Fox, which is now part of Disney — and they’re filled with violence, adult themes and profanity. “Logan” contains “extremely strong, bloody comic book violence” along with nudity, profanity and alcohol consumption, Common Sense Media notes. Of “Deadpool,” the site says the “gory, profane, sexy superhero story [is] great, but NOT for kids.”

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For parents or guardians who want to make sure their kids can’t access such adult-oriented fare, Disney+ provides several parental-control features. Here’s how to set them up:

Kid’s Profiles

This is the most straightforward way to keep child viewers within a walled garden that includes only content suitable for all viewers. To set up a kid’s profile: Open your account, then select “Add Profile.” Select a character icon for the Profile and enter a Profile name. Toggle the “Kids Profile” setting to “On,” then select “Save.”

There’s also an option for a “Kid-Proof Exit,” which prevents a Kid’s Profile user from navigating to other account user profiles without completing a simple exit challenge (showing them four numbers spelled out and asking them to enter the numerals).

Content Ratings

For regular profiles (that are not set up as Kid’s Profiles), Disney+ account owners can set content ratings so that TV shows and movies rated higher than each profile’s content rating will not be shown while a user of that profile browses or searches Disney+.

To adjust a profile’s content ratings, access your profile and select “Edit Profiles.” Select the profile you’d like to edit; under “Parental Controls,” select “Content Rating.” After entering your password, you can then select the highest level of content rating for that profile from among nine options (TV-Y; TV-Y7; TV-Y7-FV; G, G-TV; PG-TV, PG; PG-13; TV-14; R; and TV-MA); then click “Save.”

Profile PIN

The primary Disney+ account holder can set a four-digit password to restrict others from their profile. To set this up, select your profile and choose “Profile PIN” under the Parental Controls menu. After entering your password, you can enter, change or remove your PIN, then select “Save.”

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Parents Television and Media Council released a statement accusing Disney+ of “breaking its promise” to not add R-rated movies to the streaming platform. Actually, the media conglomerate hasn’t ever made such a promise. The watchdog group was referring to an August 2019 tweet by entertainment writer Eric Vespe which cited an unidentified company rep saying the content on Disney+ at launch “will all be PG-13 or softer.”

“While Disney+ points subscribers to its parental controls, the mere presence of R-rated and TV-MA rated content violates the trust and sensibilities of families,” PTC president Tim Winter said in a statement. “What took decades to build is now taking mere months to erase.” The org had previously griped about Disney+ adding several TV-MA-rated Marvel series that had previously been on Netflix, including “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist.”

Ryan Reynolds, star of the “Deadpool” movies, had a far more lighthearted and hilarious take on the Disney+ development.

“We’re supposed to announce ‘Logan’ and ‘Deadpool’ will soon be the first R-rated movies on Disney+. But we all know some Disney movies should already be rated R for irreversible trauma,” he tweeted Thursday. Reynolds cheekily called out, for example, “The Lion King” for “Fratricide. Mauling. Very possibly half-sibling lovin’, or at least kissin’ cousins. Seriously.”

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